HowlRound: My two disturbing moments taken together, in what I will admit is a bleak interpretation, amounted to something like: arts administrators don’t want to be bothered talking about how artists feel disenfranchised anymore because they find the conversation both insulting and passé, and artists don’t believe what arts administrators have to say so why should an arts administrator bother to engage in the first place. All I can think is we’re mimicking congressional politics. We’re all happily ensconced in our immovable worldviews and we’re willing to manipulate whatever the other side says to prop up our own vantage point. This form of public discourse is straight out of certain disreputable news rooms most of us complain about. Our own discourse is no more fact-based, careful, or informed.As artists and institutions, we are actively participating in the decline of public discourse taking over our nation. And frankly, I think we should stop it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Artists, Institutions, and the Decline of Public Discourse
HowlRound: My two disturbing moments taken together, in what I will admit is a bleak interpretation, amounted to something like: arts administrators don’t want to be bothered talking about how artists feel disenfranchised anymore because they find the conversation both insulting and passé, and artists don’t believe what arts administrators have to say so why should an arts administrator bother to engage in the first place. All I can think is we’re mimicking congressional politics. We’re all happily ensconced in our immovable worldviews and we’re willing to manipulate whatever the other side says to prop up our own vantage point. This form of public discourse is straight out of certain disreputable news rooms most of us complain about. Our own discourse is no more fact-based, careful, or informed.As artists and institutions, we are actively participating in the decline of public discourse taking over our nation. And frankly, I think we should stop it.
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3 comments:
This article does sound a bit political, and we certainly don't want to sound like politicians. I wonder though if there really are as many divisions between artists and administrators as we believe. Working with managers I've begun to appreciate their work. We should remember that we are all working for the same goal and as long as we keep that in mind everything will work out well. There really is no room for conflict. Let's leave the mud slinging to the politicians. That said, the article has many good suggestions on how we can relate to one another in more efficient ways.
It's a little disappointing to hear that there are places in the theater community that have succumb to the same bickering that politicians in Washington have. I do find it interesting that while the author attempts to take a more moderate position on things and try to give advice to both sides, he is at the same time worried about whether those sides will ignore the advice because they believe he would be favoring the opposition. This is the very same problem that we do face in Washington, that no one is willing to listen to one another, and as the author states, skews what the other side says to suit their agenda. I'm hopeful that theater communities can work this out better than the politicians in Washington, but it's still a rather disheartening thing to read about.
I never really saw a dichotomy of "Haves" and "Have-Nots" in the theatre world. We are all artists and not suits on wall street and as such have different motivation and goals in life and work. He touches upon this in his conclusion in that Regional Theatre exists to promote arts around the country. As a Not-for-profit organization the "Haves" need to be giving back to the community and putting money back into local artists' pockets. The "Have-Nots" need to need to be clear about who they define as an "enemy" and realize that not all institutions are bad. If that happens then we won't see each other as smug or whiny, respectively, but as human beings who are all a member of a community.
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